Early Morning at Planet Fitness

If I want examples of heroism, I don’t have to look much farther than those around me at the gym. In so many cases, the people who are sweating it out have pretty interesting stories. Most of us, however, are too busy either ogling ourselves (for better or for worse), especially after a year in lockdown, or comparing ourselves to people we assume either are just plain lucky or have it better than we do.

How little we understand. To that, I will share what happened this morning around 6:35 am.

She was standing next to the cleaning station, which was a big trash can whose lid was repurposed, as were they all, for sprayers and towels. Planet Fitness (PF) has done an admirable job of turning all of its patrons into cleaning fiends; we are admonished to wipe down before and after. Uses a lotta paper but at least the place sparkles.

Lori, as I would discover was her name, was doing upper body with some fairly light dumbbells. Weight, of course, is relative; she’s very slim. Standing at about 5'7", Lori weighs 125. She’s 55. All of which I learned later. First, this is how we met.

Lori was hyper-extending her knees as she was working her arms and shoulders. I suggested that she bend her knees ever so slightly, which takes the pressure off her lower back, improves posture and causes her arms to do the work rather than put her lower back at risk. She told me later that this explained why her lower back was sore after a workout. She was lovely about it, as she is trying to build strength and was unhappy about the pain.

Look. I am neither an expert nor am I a fitness trainer. However, after 47 years of being a…

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